How Munich Rejected Steve Ballmer and Kicked Microsoft out of the City

Breaking up with Microsoft is hard to do. Just ask Peter Hofmann, the man leading the City of Munich's project to ditch Windows and Office in favour of open source alternatives.

The project took close to a decade to complete, has seen the city wrestle with legal uncertainties and earned Munich a visit from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, whose pleas to the mayor of Germany's third largest city not to switch fell on deaf ears.

Munich says the move to open source has saved it more than €10m, a claimcontested by Microsoft, yet Hofmann says the point of making the switch was never about money, but about freedom.